The Maze of Conscience
The White Devil by John Webster is one of the goriest revenge tragedies ever written; but to invoke this against it, to call it a mere bloodfest (“Who can hope to speak passionate verse lying on the floor,” quipped Lucas) is an unfair simplification: The play contains an exquisite moral paradox.
Flamineo, in the last act, and shortly before Bracciano’s ghost enters to foredoom him, says:
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Flamineo speaks these words of moral doubt in Act 5, Scene iv. In Scene vi (the very next scene in which Flamineo appears) he tries to hoodwink his lover Vittoria and her maid into killing themselves and, when this fails, tries to murder them. Flamineo is thus an enigma: Troubled by moral doubts, he proceeds directly to treachery and murder with a fierce resolve. (Picture Hamlet at the end of his famous soliloquy and the peak of his indecision suddenly giving vent to a blood-curdling battle cry and charging at his uncle with both daggers drawn). How is this to be explained?
Here is my explanation: Moral qualms can, in certain situations, move one to act more immorally because when the morality of an act is in question, but there is some seperate incentive calling for that act, a man may be moved to carry it out at once and without hesitation and even with enthusiasm so that certainty in the performance of the mechanical act compensates for the underlying moral uncertainty. |